Crash Kings is an American rock three-piece formed in Los Angeles, California in 2006. The band comprises vocalist-keyboardist Tony Beliveau, his brother bassist Mike Beliveau, and drummer Jason Morris. This is the first single from the trio's self-titled debut album, which was released May 26, 2009.

Tony Beliveau explained the song's meaning to TheyWillRockYou.com: "It was July 4th of July weekend and I was on a 3 day solo trek out at Yosemite, Hetch Hetchy to be exact, and I remember sitting on top of a mountain, looking out into the sun and the clouds. I had this really strong feeling of security, peace, and overall serenity. I remember thinking, 'this is where I want to be when I die'. When I came home, I wrote 'Mountain Man' as an overall reflection of that weekend. It's about savoring the best moments, separating yourself from the masses to discover your personal identity, and of course some drunk girl, who hasn't quite figured out what this song really means yet."

Tony Beliveau plays a clavinet with a whammy bar on several of the tracks on Crash Kings including this one. His brother Mike told popwreckoning how they ended up using the unusual instrument: "It's kind of a, well the instrument found us in a lucky moment. Tony was going to borrow a keyboard from a friend and ended up with this great keyboard because they couldn't find the original one that they were looking for, so he brought this back to the studio and was like, 'Hey, Mike. You have to come check this thing out. It's crazy. It has a whammy bar.' It's a pretty rare thing. So we got to the studio and were both like, 'Woah.' The ideas for the instrument started forming; we can distort this thing or make it sound like guitar. Basically what it is, it's an electric guitar in a keyboard format. It has guitar strings and the whammy bar is a classic element of a guitar, so we thought it would work great in a rock band. That's how that instrument came to be in our band.